SAFETEA-LU Revisions to Merger Process

On August 10, 2005, President George W. Bush signed into law a new federal transportation re-authorization bill, entitled Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU).

Section 6002 of SAFETEA-LU, entitled Efficient Environmental Reviews for Project Decision Making, established an environmental review process for transportation projects that ensures that interested agencies have an opportunity to participate in environmental reviews, while respecting project schedules. All transportation projects requiring a Federal EIS for which the original Notice of Intent was published in the Federal Register after August 10, 2005 are required to follow the Section 6002 environmental review process. One element of this review process involves the development of an environmental coordination plan for subject projects.

Because NCDOT's Merger 01 Process largely met the requirements of Section 6002, NCDOT approached FHWA and asked if the Merger 01 Process could serve as a programmatic environmental coordination plan for NCDOT projects. FHWA agreed, provided that a few changes were made to the Merger 01 Process Guidance to make it fully consistent and compliant with Section 6002. These changes have been made, approved by FHWA, and are included here. The "new" Merger, which incorporates all the Section 6002 changes, is dropping the "01" from its name; it is hereby called, simply, the Merger Process.

Marked versions that show the specific changes to the Merger 01 process are shown below.

FHWA Revisions Memo.pdf
Process I - Revised
Process II - Revised
Appendix B - Revised